Stranded
by The Plotsman
Summary: A long vacation goes terribly wrong.
1. Chapter 1

The car, a late model Dodge, had broken down in the middle of Nowhere, Georgia. The golden chariot that had delivered them from the utter Hell of Las Vegas, through the burning desert, the desolate Great Plains, and most of the way through the Bible Belt had slowed and sputtered to a stop and no amount of prodding or coaxing would convince it budge.

As he and Anatoly trekked slowly through the forest, travelling in a route parallel to the road, Harry found himself missing the beefy roar of the car's engine; he'd always found that it did a remarkably good job of blocking out the hissing moans and half-roars of the groaners, as they'd been dubbed by an acquaintance back in Las Vegas (now dead and forgotten). Now that the car was gone, he could hear them again.

Harry couldn't believe this unending Hell had started with something as innocuous as an extended vacation.

Immediately after school, to the surprise of no one, Harry had joined the auror program. The program had been grueling, the training intensive, but soon after he'd become an auror proper. The time passed uneventfully and thirteen years, several breakups (one large and several minor), and a few promotions later Harry found himself as the overpaid and under stimulated Head of the Auror Office. No one had ever told him just how boring it would be.

So, Harry decided - or rather Hermione and Ron had decided for him - that he should take a vacation, travel abroad, have the adventures that people longed to have instead of the dark ones that had been forced upon him in his youth. The first stop had been Russia and Harry was certain he had never been to a more dreary place, then he'd gone to Hong Kong which he found more to his taste despite the fact that he didn't speak the language. Finally, he hopped a plane to Las Vegas - international travel by muggle means was slower but a far sight more tolerable than the system that had been cooked up by wizards.

One week after he'd landed in Vegas Harry had discovered that he was reaching the end of his allotted month of vacation time and started to make arrangements to travel back to England. That was when the borders closed.

As it turned out a disease had been moving through the United States for several days and Harry had been all too busy gambling away his money and living the high life to have noticed. Being stranded in America with only his wand, a duffle full of muggle clothing, and an assortment of cheesy souvenirs for his friends back home, Harry had made his way to the nearest magical hub to try to book a series of international portkeys to get him across America and then across the pond and back home. This plan was immediately curtailed by the military rolling into Vegas and declaring martial law, followed soon after by what Harry could only describe as the end of the world.

On the dawn of what Harry had decided would be his last day in Las Vegas, he'd come to the conclusion that using his magic to run a few military checkpoints would be preferable to staying in a military occupied city for the foreseeable future. He had gathered his luggage and a long walk and a few military checkpoints later the whole city exploded into panic. People were running into the streets, many bleeding, many more dying. The thing of it was that the dead didn't remain as such. As the dying and dead filled the streets Harry looked around and spotted the Eiffel Tower replica of the Paris Las Vegas hotel. Line-of-Sight apparition was ill-advised at such great distances but as one of the recently dead stumbled towards him, maw dripping with blood and human viscera, he decided that the risk of splinching himself was the lesser of two evils. With a sharp crack he disappeared from the street and reappeared on the balcony just below the precipice of the Eiffel Tower replica. From there Harry Potter had front row seats to the end of the world.

Now, three-hundred and some odd days later, Harry walked through the woods with Anatoly the Russian tourist, the last friend Harry had and perhaps the strongest man he knew. Harry's auror training had taught him how to track, how to kill, how to survive in the wilderness without a wand, but Anatoly seemed to be a breed apart. Harry assumed he was some sort of Ex-Special Forces, or whatever the Russian equivalent was, but Anatoly never talked much about his past and that suited Harry just fine. The Russian had taught Harry how to shoot and they'd kept each other alive for the better part of a year, even as everyone else they knew was claimed by death.

They drew to a stop at a set of train tracks, although the tracks weren't specifically why they stopped. The sounds of what could only be a massive group of groaners could be heard up ahead, likely a herd that was roaming down the road. Harry glanced around for a good tree before tapping Anatoly on the shoulder and scrambling his way up the tree as quietly as possible. Anatoly was quick to follow. They couldn't see much through the foliage of the tree, but they would certainly hear when the coast was clear. All that was left to do was hunker down and wait the groaners out.

"Train tracks run North and South," Anatoly whispered up to Harry. "Which way you think is nearest town?"

Harry looked away from his fingernails that he'd started to clean with his knife, a seven inch Ka-Bar he'd taken off of a dead soldier. "Flip a coin, mate. One direction is as good as the other."

Anatoly just nodded and they settled down for a long wait.

LINE BREAK

By the late afternoon, the majority of the groaner herd had moved on. They could hear them down the read, back where they'd left their car, but the bulk had moved on enough that they could climb out of their tree and continue on their way. Anatoly had indeed flipped a coin and South was the direction they chose.

Two hours of walking at a steady pace brung them to a small abandoned house off the tracks a ways. The fence was crumbling and the door was broken completely off the hinges but it was as good a place as any to wait out the night. They walked up to the door frame, knives out, and knocked loudly on it. After a few seconds, shuffling and moaning was heard as a walking pile of dead flesh shuffled its way to the front door. Anatoly was quick to shove his knife into its ear.

Harry searched the house as his companion set up a crude alarm system in the door frame. In the bathroom he found a medicine cabinet and caught a look at his reflection in the dusty mirror. His hair was wild and long hanging down around his face and nearly touching his shoulders. His beard was thankfully just over an inch long although it was similarly dirty. Thankfully a corrective procedure soon after he'd left school had made sure Harry wasn't worrying about his glasses during the undead apocalypse. The red flannel he wore was covered by a kevlar vest covered with many pockets. He'd found it in a private residence of all places. Harry was pulled out of his stupor by footsteps in the hall and quickly opened the cabinet and took the lone bottle of aspirin that was inside before walking out to meet Anatoly.

"Aspirin," Harry said as he held out the bottle.

"Peaches," Anatoly responded as he held out a sealed can. "Also this." His second hand contained a single black hair tie. "Get hair out of eyes."

Harry took the tie and quickly tied his long hair into a topknot while he followed Anatoly into the living room. The Russian fished a can opener out of his pack as well as a bowl. He poured half the peaches into the bowl and handed it to Harry and they shared a quiet meal as the Sun set.

LINE BREAK

Harry was jerked awake on the living room floor by the sound of rattling cans. He gripped his M4 rifle and looked around for Anatoly to find him nowhere in sight. Anatoly's pack was still where he'd left it but his AK-74 was missing, telling Harry that the Russian was still on watch.

Harry slipped the strap of his rifle over his shoulder and walked out of the living room and down the hallway that led to the front door. They had moved the couch out of the living room and into the hallway to block the way of any groaners that might have made it past their crude alarm system. On that couch Harry found Anatoly. He was fumbling with a lighter while a cigarette hung from his mouth. Harry took it from his hand and lit it for him.

"That was you making all that noise?" Harry asked as he grabbed the pack of cigarettes and pulled one out for himself. He had initially been reluctant to start smoking, but cigarettes were easier to find than food most of the time and the nicotine soothed his appetite when food was scarce. Harry tried to limit himself to one or two smokes a day.

"Da. I thought one last smoke before it's over."

"Over? What are you...?" As Anatoly held up his right hand, Harry noticed that there were only three fingers attached to it and it was bleeding heavily.

"Ah, shit. Bugger it all."

"Large group, maybe fifteen, maybe more. Coming down from North. Tried to run, not to attract attention, tripped." Anatoly let out a rueful chuckle. "Went out to take piss, should have brought rifle."

As Anatoly mentioned his rifle, Harry noticed it leaning next to the door frame. He quickly moved to Anatoly's right side while pulling his knife.

"Give it here," he said, reaching for Anatoly's hand. "I'll cut it off while there's still time."

"No time. Listen." Anatoly pointed out the doorway, and suddenly Harry could hear them. The signature groaning that served as a precursor to death or a long run.

Anatoly started working off his forearm pads. "Grab my rifle." Harry did so and handed Anatoly his AK-74. "Take these," he said as he handed Harry his forearm pads. "Did no good to me in the end. Maybe they save your life. Now, get me my pack." As Harry ran back further into the house, Anatoly shouldered his rifle, waiting for the approaching horde.

When Harry arrived at the sleeping area, he gathered his own pack and threw it on his back first, then put on Anatoly's, now his, forearm pads, and then got the Russian's pack. He ran back to the entryway where the sounds of the undead were growing. He set Anatoly's pack down next to him.

"There are two grenades in the bottom, give me one, you take other. Take my smokes, too." Harry did as he was told and handed Anatoly a frag grenade then pocketed the other. He found one unopened pack of cigarettes in the pack that he quickly shoved into the side pocket of his cargo pants. Anatoly turned to grin at him, his half smoked cigarette clenched in his teeth.

"Now I die like big American hero. Yippee Ki-yay, motherfucker!" He shouted as the first groaner entered sight of the doorway. As Anatoly opened fire, Harry ran in the other direction. He made it out the back door and into the treeline by the time he heard the shots stop.

"Poshel na khuy!" These were the last words Harry heard Anatoly speak, faint as they were, before they were followed by an explosion. Harry found the train tracks and kept running.

LINE BREAK

Harry sat on the train tracks, looking downhill and across a small creek at a zombie infested prison. He had walked down the tracks for the rest of the night and much of the morning. As his stomach rumbled, Harry lit a cigarette.

There was a good chance that there was food in the prison, and if this one was anything like Azkaban, it probably wasn't too close to any towns. He couldn't pass up this chance. He couldn't clear the entire prison alone, but finding food wouldn't involve clearing the whole prison. As he was mulling this over he heard footsteps approaching to his right. He looked over and spotted two men, one holding a crossbow and the other a whopper of a revolver, both pointed at him.

"Nice day, isn't it, boys?"

"Don't touch that weapon," said the one with the revolver. He inched his way closer, but Harry turned away and looked at the prison again.

"Have you ever seen something so promising?" He motioned to the prison. Harry heard them whispering amongst themselves and stood up, drawing their attention back to him.

"Hey! Sit back down!" That was the one with the revolver again. The one with the crossbow seemed to speak very little, if at all.

"I'm hungry. I don't know about you, but I can't pass an opportunity like this up. If you're going to shoot me, make sure it's in the head, would you? Flak jacket and all, wouldn't want for you to bollocks it up."

Harry took two steps before the same man stopped him. "Well... How are you going to get in?" He sounded conflicted, like he was doing something he was sure he would regret later.

Harry turned around with a grin. "Hadn't given it much thought."

The man sighed and turned to his partner. They started whispering heatedly at each other. The one with the crossbow seemed purely against whatever the one with the revolver was proposing, but in the end he seemed to relent.

"I'm going to give you just one chance. You'll help us take this prison, but if you try anything, anything at all, there are more of us and none of us will hesitate to put you down." He nodded at the man with crossbow and he walked off. Harry sat back down on the train tracks.

"Harry, former copper," Harry said as he held out his hand to the other man.

He hesitated for a bit before taking the hand. "Rick, former sheriff."

**A/N: You'll learn why Harry isn't running around doing magic and apparating all over the place probably next chapter, it's not a very complicated reason.**


	2. Chapter 2

It hadn't taken long for Daryl-Rick had told Harry that was the man with the crossbow's name-to return with the rest of their group. There were ten of them altogether, all armed and one heavily pregnant. Even if Harry had any desire to kill a pregnant woman and a child, there was no doubt in his mind he would be dead before he could get off a shot. Rick walked over to meet them, and Harry followed at a respectful distance; he noticed out of the corner of his eye that Daryl had resumed pointing his crossbow at him.

"This is Harry," Rick introduced him to the group. "He's going to help us clear the prison, we're going to get him some supplies from the inside, and then he'll be on his way. Correct?" The question was directed at Harry.

"Sure thing, I'll be happy to help. Oh! I have a peace offering!" Harry slung his backpack off his shoulder and started to dig around inside of it and was almost immediately greeted by the feeling of a gun being held to his temple. "Easy, easy," Harry cajoled as he slowly pulled his hand out of his backpack where it was clutching a grenade. He heard the hammer of the gun being cocked back. "Look, a grenade. So you know I won't be blowing you up anytime soon." He held it away from his body and someone snatched it out of his hand, and just like that the situation was over. Harry stood up and put his pack on his shoulders again but Rick was still pointing his giant revolver at him, although he'd taken a few steps back.

"Now how do we know that you don't have a second one in there?" asked Rick.

"Come on, mate. Who carries _two_ grenades?" Harry asked, ignoring the fact that Anatoly had been carrying two grenades himself just before his death. "Do you know how hard those are to find?"

"It's a pretty good point," said an asian man. He then waved to Harry. "I'm Glenn, by the way."

Glenn seemed to have a way of diffusing tense situations because after that Rick had lowered his gun and even convinced Daryl to lower his crossbow. There was a quick round of introductions before they got down to brass tacks. From a duffel full of guns and other sundry weapons, T-Dog, a bald black man, had produced a pair of bolt cutters which he handed off to Rick. Glenn had pulled a length of orange wire from somewhere on his person. The plan was to run to the outer fence, cut it open, get into the buffer zone between the inner and outer fence, and close the hole in the outer fence.

Melee weapons were distributed and Harry received a claw hammer. They found a good spot in the fence that was surrounded by minimal groaners and after everyone was prepared, they made a run for it. They made it to the fence without much incident and Rick started to cut through the chainlink as quickly as he could while the group made sure the groaners kept their distance. He was through in a few seconds and everyone made their way through the hole, T-Dog bringing up the rear. Glenn tied the hole closed quickly and they moved away lest anymore groaners come and breach the hasty patch job.

While they made their way to a door that lead from the buffer zone into the prison yard, Rick spotted an open gate that lead into the prison proper. A groaner seemed to stumble through it every once in a while.

"We close that gate, keep more from filling the yard. We can pick off these walkers. We'll take the field by tonight," Rick said with a sort of desperate fervor that made Harry think these people had fallen on especially hard times recently.

"So how do we shut the gate?" asked Hershel, an old man who, in Harry's opinion, looked woefully out of place in the post-apocalypse.

"I can do it," said Harry as he took his bag off his shoulder. He started tightening the strap of his M4 so it would hang closer to his body and then he started rooting through his pack for an extra magazine. He had to get these people to trust him somehow, and Harry had never had much of a problem putting his life on the line for the sake of others. Rick took a knee in front of Harry.

"Are you absolutely sure about this?"

Harry looked up and smiled. "Sure. I'm the expendable one." It was a grim way to put it, but Harry was certain if Rick wanted anyone to walk into a deathtrap, he would rather it be a stranger than one of his people. "Besides, I used to do a lot of running in my youth. You'd be surprised how fast a childhood bully and an adulthood full of police work can make you." Harry finally pulled a magazine from the pack and shoved it into one of the pockets of his flak jacket. When he stood up he caught the latter end of conversation that had been held entirely through meaningful looks.

Lori, the pregnant woman, had been staring at Rick beseechingly while Rick's entire body language spoke of grudging acceptance. He turned back to Harry and said, "Fine, but we're going to give you some help." After that Rick started assigning teams to distract groaners and teams of two to climb the guard towers and provide covering fire for Harry as he made his way across the yard. Finally Rick handed Harry a pair of oversized carabiner clips connected with a short chain. "Use this to secure the gate." He also pulled a pistol fitted with what looked like a large flashlight at the muzzle. "And use this if you run into trouble." 

Harry took the clips and the pistol, nodding briefly before walking to the gate. Soon the distraction team started shouting, attracting groaners to them and Rick pushed open the gate. Harry didn't hesitate as he stepped through. The sounds of gurgling dead flesh were punctuated with a plethora of gunfire and Harry set off at a sprint towards the gate. He made it almost halfway before a groaner crossed his path. It was put down by a crossbow bolt to the head almost before Harry had time to consider his options. Daryl didn't strike him as the kind of man who missed often so Harry guessed he must have stopped looking for opportunities to kill him.

He continued his mad dash for the gate, putting down two groaners on the way. When he reached the gate, the groaners on the other side of it seemed to have caught wind of the commotion and had started to shuffle unintelligently towards the sound of gunfire. Harry fired his gun at two of them that had made it nearest the gate before pulling it shut and applying the carabiner clips to keep it that way.

With his job done and numerous groaners closing in on him, Harry ran to the guard tower that was situated conveniently near the gate that he had just shut. He wrenched the metal door open and sidestepped the groaner that stumbled out when he did. It fell flat on its face and Harry bolted into the tower, closing the door behind himself. It was dark on the inside but Harry could make out the form of a second groaner halfway up the stairs. It had fallen to its position and now crawled down the stairs pitifully, its rotten legs having been snapped like twigs when it fell. Harry put it out of its misery and stepped over the body as he climbed the tower.

When he reached the balcony he was greeted by the sight of groaners being picked off, falling one by one. He shouldered his rifle and joined in. After a few minutes and the liberal use of ammunition, all of the groaners were dead. T-Dog let out a cheer as the group entered the courtyard and Harry responded with one of his own.

LINE BREAK

The rest of the day had consisted of exhaustive amounts of manual labor. Daryl had gone hunting with Carol, a middle-aged woman with graying hair, leaving Harry and the rest of the group to clear away the bodies and burn them. There had been thirty-four groaners occupying the prison yard. Daryl and Carol had come back near sundown, toting four squirrels and a scrawny rabbit. Harry offered up a lone can of beef broth and the group decided to make a stew. It was lean eating at best, but when Harry spread out on the grass near the glowing embers of the campfire he felt satisfied. Beth, a young blond girl in her early teens, had sung them all a song after dinner and the melody echoed in Harry's thoughts as he fell to sleep.

When he woke again it was still night time. Rick was nudging him awake and when Harry looked around he spotted Carol and T-Dog turning in for the night.

"Come on, we're on watch until dawn," Rick said. He had a hunting rifle slung over his shoulder and his revolver at his hip. Harry picked up his M4 but left his pack. They walked in silence to an overturned prison bus that had been abandoned right in front of the main gate. They clambered onto the bus and Harry sat down. He pulled out a cigarette, lit it, and took the first drag of his nicotine breakfast.

"Fancy a fag?" Harry asked while holding the carton of cancer sticks out to the other man.

"What?" Rick gave him a strange look.

"A cigarette, mate. Would you like a cigarette?" Rick waved him off. They stayed like that for a while, staring into the darkness. And then Rick spoke.

"Listen. What you did for us earlier... that was a real stand up thing to do. But I need to know-the group needs to know-if you're going to be staying around. I know the deal was you help us and we give you supplies, but it seems to me that you're a team player. This was a big win for us today." Rick motioned to the prison behind them. "It's gonna take time and work-a lot of work-but we can make this place a paradise and it's gonna take good and strong people to make it that way. We could use a guy like you to make that happen. Now I'm not saying I trust you, and I can't speak for anyone else, but... What I'm trying to say is that you can stay if you want."

Harry took a final drag of his cigarette and flicked the butt away. It wasn't like he had a lot of options. There was nowhere to go in this dead world. He and Anatoly had traveled across the country and Anatoly had died for all his trouble. These were seemingly good people, and even if they turned out to be dirty rotten scoundrels, he would take them over an endless army of dead people any day.

"I've nowhere else to be. No pressing engagements or anything." Harry chuckled at his own joke. "If you'll have me, I'm with you 'til the end. Unless you all turn you to be cannibals or something."

Rick snorted and they whiled away the hours telling stories of their police work before the groaners had torn the world apart. Harry made sure to edit out the magic bits.

When the Sun finally crawled up over the horizon, Harry and Rick set about waking up the rest of the group. There was no food to eat so breakfast was out of the question, but regardless everyone seemed eager enough to push into the prison. The sooner they found the food stores, the sooner everyone would get to eat. They assembled a group of six consisting of Daryl, Rick, Glenn, Maggie (a pretty young woman who seemed to be entangled romantically with Glenn), T-Dog, and Harry himself. This group would have the glamorous job of clearing the courtyard that Harry had sealed the day before. Harry handed off his rifle to Hershel and joined the rest of the group in formation at the gate. It was going to be a long day.

**A/N: All exposition will come in the form of Harry's introspection, as such I didn't really find a place to explain the lack of magic in this chapter that fit well in my mind. I won't write flashbacks as I find them pretty lazy so it won't really be a huge thing filled with a lot of detail anyway. Although the story is being told in the the third person, all narration will follow Harry. Even if you know what's happening outside of the prison, the narration will reflect only Harry's knowledge of what's happening. **


End file.
